


Mid-Morning at Phantomhive Manor

by honeyedlion



Series: Stocking!verse [3]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Crossdressing, Female Pronouns for Grell Sutcliff, Gender Exploration, Genderfluid Character, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, It's not in this it's just something I believe, M/M, Naval Gazing, Other, Trans Character, outside perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 08:47:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyedlion/pseuds/honeyedlion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the smell of roses in the air.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mid-Morning at Phantomhive Manor

**Author's Note:**

> This was so much fun.

It was not her last stop of the day, nor was it her first. She liked to stop at the Phantomhive manner somewhere comfortably in the middle of her day, so she would have lots of cushion in between it, and the rest of her world.  
  
It never seemed what it was. The maid let her in, a hapless girl with hugely thick spectacles, and the entryway was just as grand as any of her other clients, the air smelling of the same wealth and cleanliness as it always did, except here there was often the soft scent of roses. Not fresh rich garden blooms, but the thick scent of dried roses, decaying and crumbling slowly in an attic. The smell of yellowed lace, and small smiles, and-  
  
She shook her head, and steeled herself. She had only barely entered. The ordeal was long from over. She refused (for the millionth time) the maids offer to take her coat, instead keeping it wrapped tightly around herself, as though to ward off a chill. This house was chilling. People had told her the rumors when she'd first been offered this job, before she knew what it entailed, and she knew well the story of its mysterious rise from the ashes overnight. Of the people who came here, who never left. The poor of London always knew more than the royals thought they did. They listened, like mice in a large house, waiting for the sound of feet.  
  
She was led up a sweeping staircase, to a simplistic parlor (simplistic for a noble, while for her the furnishings of this room likely cost more than she would make in her life) to ready the tools of her trade, which she carried in a worn valise at her side. The first time she had come, she had brought two valises, and book of sketches to show, terribly excited at the idea. It was her first big job, working for the Phantomhive's and she had been so terribly eager, so excited to finally get to make the things she longed to. Yes, he was a boy, and she tailored for girls, but who cared, she'd make them anything they wanted, and the money-  
  
She laughed a little, before opening her bag. She pulled out notebooks, and fabric samples, needles and pins, and the other bits and pieces that went with being a seamstress. She now made enough to hold her own shop. She no longer made house calls, people called on her. She had assistants, and yet roughly once a month, a voice on her telephone, imperious and small summoned her here. To this house. To this room.  
  
The door opened behind her, and she turned to meet him, unsurprised by the blood penny color of his eyes, the small quirk of his lips. She nodded cordially and he nodded back, a curious movement, almost an aborted bow, while at the same time affording her no respect. Why should he? They, after all, had made her anything. Had made her from a freelance seamstress, to a tailor of accord.  
  
One little thing she had to do. A single payment a month.  
  
"Young mistress will be here in just a moment. She is still readying herself for the fitting."  
  
She nodded and waited quietly, avoiding his gaze only through much practice. The smell of roses seemed thicker in this room, heavy with the iron smell of rotting things, and damp earth. It was a rich smell, and smelled nothing like bland nobility. It was only a moment longer, and the 'Mistress' walked in.  
  
He was slim, and she knew on a distant level, heartbreakingly beautiful. When she first saw him, he was wearing a ball gown, slim and pink, and charming with sweet round features on the cusp of adulthood, and she though 'Finally. Finally I have found a muse.'  
  
And in a way that hadn't changed. She still worked feverishly into the night some days, sketching dresses, and stitching absentmindedly, feeling all the while as though the medium she used was unfit for what she was trying to express. Maybe if she had been a painter...  
  
If she had been a painter, she wouldn't have to come here once a month and the point would be mute.  
  
She curtsied low, her gown sweeping the floor and rose smoothly. "Hello, Lady Phantomhive. If you wouldn't mind changing, I need to check your measurements. I think you may have gotten taller."  
  
Lady Phantomhive, Earl Phantomhive to the rest of the world nodded, and smiled at her sweetly, before looking back to the man behind him, eyes coy and soft. And here was what bothered her, what worried her. The strangeness of the gowns was nothing (all the nobility were sick, it came with wealth) but this-  
  
This was-  
  
The butler was unhooking the back of his gown, fingers quick and steady and yet somehow agonizingly slow, and how she wished she had waited to go through her bag until now, given her hands and her eyes something to keep busy with, something to watch aside from them. Aside from the way those blue eyes fluttered almost shut, hanging half-mast instead, settling somewhere between indolence and insolence. So she wouldn't watch those slender gloved hands stroke along his neck, his cheek, his thigh as his butler stripped him down to nothing, careful, professional, and sinfully wrong.  
  
The dress puddled on the floor, leaving a corset and garter set in vibrant blue, black silk stockings and delicate French lace undergarments she knew cost a frivolously large amount. Clothing worn by expensive courtesans not well-to-do Earls who had yet to truly hit puberty. The butler pulled away, reluctantly, his movements slow, as though he was unwilling to leave his prey, and she stepped forward briskly, to clear the air and her head. She shuffled him onto a step stool, handing him up easily when he wobbled on tiny, china doll heels, and took swift mundane measurements. Height, waist, bust. Length from waist to foot both in heels and out of them. Length of arm. Breadth of shoulder.  
  
She was right. He did get taller. Not even an inch, but she wondered what he'll do when he becomes truly a man. Now she watched him, and even knowing, even having created the illusion cannot help but believe it, but in a few years, with stubble on his chin, and broad shoulders, she wondered.  
  
Well. Not her business. That was a million monthly visits away, and for now she handed him new sketches and fabric samples to ponder over while she fitted him for a last time. And all the while she was conscious of the man in the corner, dressed all in black and gray, like a stain on the parlor wall. She was conscious of his eyes on her every move. It had made her wary lately, of touching the boy. She feels like she is touching something forbidden, and now her fingertips tingle in warning wherever they come into contact with smooth skin. It made her anxious, and she works quickly to forget.  
  
Only a bit more work to be done, and then she will be gone for another month. Gone from this house smelling of secrets and roses, gone until they call for her again. Her fingers moved surely, agitatedly, quickly and she watched, slow enough to realize too fast to catch as her hand slipped, and the pin held between her two forefingers slid free, jabbing a pale thigh.  
  
The boy hissed, like a an angry cat, and she stepped back, not afraid but wary and before she had even finished moving away the butler, the man, the stain was there and he was leaning forward, rich decadent mouth brushing against the soft skin of the Earl's thigh, one hand wrapped possessively around a diminutive waist, and she watched as his tongue slick and red swiped over the skin, wiping away the blood and leaving a clear wet streak of saliva.  
  
She looked up into the mirror across from them, and could see clearly the distention of delicate French lace, bulging in want. She felt numb.  
  
"Thank you, Sebastian."  
  
"Of course, My Lady."  
  
Roses clogged her throat.  
  
:  
  
"Really Sebastian, you didn't have to push her that far." Ciel says idly, as he watches his seamstress scuttle down the long drive, her sensible heels clacking on the cobblestones. "Everyone has a breaking point."  
  
"Oh, not her." Sebastian murmurs from behind him, and Ciel can feel his skin tingle where Sebastian had kissed it earlier, his lower thigh still stinging from the prick "We gave her everything. She won't dare leave us."  
  
His butler leaned closer, devilish voice coiling in his ear, and Ciel shuddered, eyes closing. "In fact, I think if we let her escape now, she'd find she cannot live without the smell of roses."

**Author's Note:**

> Eat the [roses](http://honeyedlion.tumblr.com/). Or submit a request.


End file.
